Wolf at the Door
by Shadowlass
Summary: Wolves took many forms, Luke Skywalker warned her. Rey had spent her life escaping from wolves, but now she wasn't so sure she wanted to run. Red Riding Hood-inspired Reylo story.
1. Chapter 1

The wolves of Jakku were nocturnal. They were shy, and smart enough to prefer the cool of the night. Some people on Jakku never saw them at all.

They were the lucky ones.

If you were unlucky—if you were weak—they'd be there. Life was hard on Jakku, and the wolves were well fed.

She didn't remember how they got on the topic of wolves. She wished she knew, so she could avoid it in the future.

"Did the wolves ever get close to you?"

Master Luke had a genius for finding a sore spot and pressing it. But who was she to refuse him? She knew he meant well, but somehow he always seemed to focus on topics that made her uncomfortable.

"Once. I hadn't been on Jakku that long, and I wasn't smart enough to know not to eat all my food immediately. Nobody would give me any, and I hadn't really figured out yet what parts were best to scavenge. It was days before I had enough for even a quarter portion. I remember feeling really weak and meaning to lay down on the sand just for a minute. When I opened my eyes it was almost dark. It was the first time I saw the wolves. I made it to shelter before they got to me."

He studied her as he ate his soup. "It had nothing to do with not being smart enough," he finally said, voice mild. "You were a child."

"I had to take care of myself. I didn't do a good job of it."

"What did you learn from your ordeal?"

"To ration my portions more carefully."

He winced. Maybe he'd been looking for a different answer. "No one helped you? Ever?"

If he was asking her that, she hadn't painted a very clear picture of life on Jakku. "They were busy trying to survive. Besides, there were always kids who needed help. The ones the wolves didn't get, I mean."

"Did you ever try to help them?"

Her shoulders tensed. "What do you think I could do? I was the same as them. It wasn't like I was sitting on a giant pile of portions laughing as they starved. I had a job—survive and keep myself alive for my fam—" she broke off and clamped her mouth shut. _I had to survive so I'd be there when my family returned, which they never did and maybe they never planned to._

His eyes were painfully kind, and her gaze scuttled past his to settle on the floor. _Damn him and his pity._ "Sometimes I slipped a portion into someone's bag. If I had enough to spare."

"Did you ever band together with other children? Try to find some safety in numbers?"

She didn't answer. "Rey?"

"I tried. Twice. The first time the kid ate all my food and then stole everything I had. I caught him before he got to trading post and made him give it back. He didn't want to, but I made him."

"And the second time?"

"The second time was a girl around my age. We were 14, maybe? Her mother had died. I told her she could stay with me."

"Did she steal from you?"

Rey's laugh was short. "No, I think everyone knew by then not to try that. Except Unkar Plutt, of course. He stole from us every day. Every transaction was him stealing from us."

Luke was silent a long moment. "What happened to her?"

Rey kept her eyes on her bowl. "One day after dinner she wanted to go for a walk. I was tired, so I said no. She never came back."

"Did you ever see her around the trading post again?"

"No."

"Wolves?"

"Maybe. In a place like Jakku it's easy to die. Lots of ways, especially for little girls."

He was silent for several minutes, and Rey was grateful. Luke Skywalker was a good man, a great man. But talking to him harrowed her soul, and increasingly she wasn't sure she had enough left to lose any. If he was anybody besides Luke Skywalker she would have told him to get bent.

He cleared his throat. "Your life on Jakku left you wary."

She shrugged. She'd done what she'd had to on Jakku. If she hadn't become tough she would have been wolf bait, too. She couldn't bring herself to resent the grit that had allowed her to survive.

"But I'm not sure you're wary of the right things."

This time she met his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Wolves can take many forms, Rey."

Irritation stabbed at her, but she brushed it away. "I don't have to worry about them here, at least."

His gaze was steady. "There are wolves everywhere, Rey."

* * *

Rey chewed her lip as the made her way back to the stone hut she slept in, the moon lighting the ancient path.

Master Luke had been especially opaque tonight.

He had offered to meditate with her, but she'd refused as fast as she could. That was the last thing she wanted right now. Their meditations stirred things up in her rather than relaxing her, and she just wanted the oblivion of sleep.

* * *

 _She'd been in this forest before. The trees were immense, taller than ships. She couldn't see the sky, didn't know her way, didn't know how she'd gotten there._

 _But she knew she wasn't alone._

 _There was something else in the forest with her. It was out of her sightline, but she could feel it. Another solitary creature, like her._

 _The brush rustled behind her and she turned. There it was, black as night, fur glossy in the moonlight. It was huge and muscled. Built to run._

 _Built to kill._

 _And it was staring straight at her._

* * *

Rey jerked awake, gasping for breath, fragments of the dream puncturing her consciousness. She couldn't stop herself from anxiously peering around the little hut, the flickering firelight revealing the same simple objects she saw every day. There was no wolf there to make a meal of her.

Gods, her heart was beating fast. She rubbed her hands against her chest, willing her heartbeat to calm. She'd done that sometimes on Jakku, rubbed her chest to calm herself at those times she found it most difficult to go on waiting and hoping. Now that she was studying under Master Luke she realized it was her own form of meditation. One that actually soothed her.

Lost in a forest with a wolf. Their discussion must have put it in her head. She'd never dreamed about wolves before, not even on nights she fell asleep to the sounds of their howls. It was bigger than any wolf she'd ever seen, and she'd never seen a black one, either.

Sleep didn't return to her for a long time.

* * *

She hadn't thought there was any place in the galaxy quieter than Jakku, but she was wrong, again. Ahch-To was as quiet as a place that had never known people. The only sounds were the ocean and the wind and the birds. Some days she almost thought she and Luke were only wandering spirits, sure that real people, living people, could never be so quiet. It was only the frigid bite of the wind that convinced her she was alive.

It wasn't all bad; she liked the lightsaber training. But every day the meditations left her feeling bruised, bewildered. The probing it required was not something that came natural to her, and she had to fight to endure each session. Every day of her life she'd concentrated on looking forward, and now she was expected to look inward, to examine and expel her doubts and fears and resentments. It was even worse than their dinner conversations, which were mercifully spare. It scraped her soul.

But Master Luke had been clear. He was not ready to return to the Resistance—and she needed training.

Yet even as she became increasingly agile with the lightsaber, she felt she was somehow growing weaker, not stronger.

She didn't mention the dream to Luke. Dreams were random and meaningless. If she dreamed of wolves again, she wouldn't run.

* * *

 _It was behind a copse of trees. It hadn't shown itself, but she knew it was there. Watching her._

 _She knew couldn't outrun it. The best she could do was try to outfight it._

 _She took a step towards it. She was powerful. She would not let it intimidate her. Yet before her second step fear seized her._ Run _, her mind told her, and she did, turning and fleeing without hesitation. Behind her she heard a howl of rage, the crashing of brush, and knew that if it caught her she was lost._

 _She stumbled over rocks and roots, desperately righting herself, hearing the wolf grow closer and closer. A growl sounded just behind her and she could swear she felt its breath licking at her ankles._

* * *

Rey gritted her teeth and tried to concentrate. On meditation. Which was useless, because concentrating was the opposite of how meditation was achieved. She'd been tense from the moment her eyes had opened at dawn, almost on the verge of panic. Even when she'd realized that that it was merely the traces of a bad dream that disturbed her, she hadn't been able to calm down. Why couldn't they move on to lightsaber training? She really wanted to do some of that. Or just train with her staff. She needed to whack something into oblivion.

"What?"

Rey opened her eyes to see Luke, kneeling across from her, frowning.

"You know lightsaber training is in the afternoon, Rey."

For a stunned moment she thought he'd actually used the Force to enter her mind before she recognized that he would never do that; she must have said something aloud. Luke Skywalker was everything that was good and decent. He would never misuse his gifts like that.

 _Unlike someone._

Then she remembered that she'd pushed back against him, reached into his mind and stolen his thoughts. The shock and horror on his face had given her a fierce satisfaction.

She refused to feel guilty about it. He'd put her in that situation; she hadn't asked him to kidnap her and use her in an attempt to destroy the Resistance. If she could go back she'd do the same thing again.

Only this time maybe she'd try to influence him the way she had the stormtrooper who'd guarded her. Tell him to release her, then go to his quarters and stay there. He wouldn't injure Finn or kill Han. He wouldn't tempt her to join him. He wouldn't enrage her so badly she'd felt the dark side rubbing against her mind, urging her to kill him.

He wouldn't get off the base before it collapsed.

She remembered how he looked after she'd extinguished that obscene lightsaber and beaten him to the ground, his face slashed open and his shoulder glistening with blood, his eyes … not pleading. Resigned. A little wistful.

He'd pleaded only when he'd asked her to join him.

* * *

 _It stood there watching her, as always._

 _Only it was … not a wolf? It stood upright, its face covered by a fierce animalistic mask. Its clothes—his clothes—were strange and oppressively dark, a tattered cape covering his broad shoulders, the opposite of the snowy cape she wore over her simple dress. He wasn't a wolf, but she could sense his feral nature. And in his hand—in his hand was a sword covered in flames, a weapon for an angel … or a devil._

 _Not a man._

 _Then he started for her, and she turned and ran._

 _His strides were long and measured, yet he was gaining on her frantic flight. She looked desperately for a way out of the forest, but the path meandered aimlessly._

 _Then he was close enough to hear, his footfalls rougher than the wolves that had preceded him. His breath was rough and guttural against the mask, and she strained to go faster._

 _He lunged at her and she surged forward, almost free, almost, but his hand, his greedy hand, managed to fasten on her ankle and part of her skirt. She ripped it away, barely noticing the sudden sharpness as he lost his grip and his fingers raked for purchase on her calf, leaving a bloody stripe. She lengthened her stride, almost safe, her feet pounding—_

 _She didn't see the root until it was too late and she was crashing down, and he stood above her triumphantly, his flaming sword covering her with its crimson light._

* * *

Rey forced her breathing to calm. Not a wolf. A man in black with a flaming sword. Focused on her, only her. It was familiar, like it had happened before, but it was just out of her grasp. She kept reaching for it, and it slid tauntingly out of sight.

It wasn't until she began to slip into sleep again that the man's mask disappeared and the sword revealed its true self. She awoke as if flung into Ahch-To's icy sea.

No. No, absolutely not.

That was not Kylo Ren. She did not dream about _Kylo Ren_. She would not—the universe would not—let her dream about Kylo Ren.

She slapped her hand against her heart and concentrated. She would go back to sleep. And she would dream of shores with clear, warm seas and soft sands. Not about men she shouldn't think of, meditations she couldn't do, and shores that didn't welcome her.

* * *

Rey barely saw the steeply stacked stones beneath her feet. There were 618 steps down to the sea, and some days they seemed endless.

The training sessions were deteriorating. She was trying harder than ever, and failing in equal measure. Master Luke was patient, gentle, and unrelenting.

It was the worst meditation session she'd ever had with him, and he was, she thought, clearly disappointed in her. As she clambered down to the rocky shoreline she fought tears. He didn't want to see those either.

Usually she only came down to the shore to tend the crab traps. She'd dreamed of an island on an ocean for so long, but nothing like this. This shore was a rock-strewn patch eager to trip her, drown her, or freeze her. The water was gray and churning and unimaginably cold. It was the least inviting place she'd ever seen. It made Jakku seem welcoming.

She had the Force. She knew it, she'd felt it. But she'd used it more strongly in the forest on Starkiller, and even in the interrogation room on the base, than she had on Ahch-To, this island steeped in the history and mysticism of the Jedi. There she had defeated a feared dark knight, and here she struggled to do what five-year-olds had done at the old academies.

Her tears were hot against her wind-chilled face, and she swiped them away guiltily.

He wouldn't return to help the Resistance. He said it wasn't time, and that the time might never come. He wouldn't bend. Then he'd offered to train her, and she'd thought he'd eventually grow more receptive to the thought of leaving. But her powers of persuasion were even less impressive than the control she displayed over the Force. And she was here, with him, on an island she had never dreamed of, and the horizon that had begun to open for her once she left Jakku was shrinking, becoming as small as the world Luke had made for himself.

With a stab, she knew he was right. Wolves did take many forms.

* * *

The moon was especially bright that night. Back on Jakku she always wanted to use bright nights like this to scavenge when it was nice and cool, but the wolves made that unwise.

 _Stars, stop thinking of wolves!_

A voice behind her said, "You look good in red."

It wasn't Luke.


	2. Chapter 2

Rey swung around, hand clutching for a staff that wasn't there. She carried no weapons when she wasn't practicing with them; the birds and snails on Ahch-To were decidedly unaggressive, so there was no need.

But with Kylo Ren, there was.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, her voice thinner than she intended. He emerged from the shadows between two stone huts, face bare.

A different face than the one Han Solo had cupped in forgiveness, one with an angry red slash across it. The face that she'd tried without success not to think of, forever changed. The face he had revealed because she asked him to. He hadn't worn a mask with her since then, she realized. He wanted her to see him, not a monster in a mask.

And now that strangely beautiful face bore her mark, and perversely, she found it even more fascinating. She felt a possessive surge as she traced it with her eyes. _She_ had put that on him. She had changed him forever.

She felt unease at the thought and hastily pushed it away. The scar was punishment, not decoration. It was no more than he deserved.

She winced at the thought. The Jedi did not take pleasure in vengeance.

"Looked your fill, little girl?"

She stiffened. "I'm not a little girl."

"No, you're not. If you were I wouldn't be here."

Heat suffused her, and for a moment thoughts wouldn't coalesce. "Why are you here?" she bit out.

"You called to me."

"What?"

"Last night. The night before. The night before that. You dreamed of me. Of us together."

She tensed, stifling a denial, clenching down on an impulse to flee.

He raised an eyebrow. "You think I didn't see your dream?"

"That's not possible," she whispered.

"Of course it is," he scoffed. "We share a Force bond. You thought you were safe from me here? I could have come for you at any time. I waited until you called me."

"Last night I might have dreamt about you—"

"Last night? They've all been about me. Surely you realize that."

Rey shook her head. It wasn't—he was— _damn him._

He canted his head to the side. "Am I the first man to make you bleed?"

She stared at him, uncomprehending.

"From when I tore at your skirt and scratched you?"

She heard a roaring in her ears and leapt at him with a muttered oath. Her fist landed on his cheek with solid impact, and he rocked on his feet. But he didn't move back.

"Do you think that was fair? They were your dreams, not mine."

She looked furious, and bemusement crossed his face. "You never seem to appreciate my consideration," he complained. "But when you send an invitation, how could I refuse?"

She was silent for a long moment, absorbing the implications. She wished, desperately, that she had her staff or her saber.

And worse, he seemed to know what she was thinking, because he _smirked_ at her. "So I'm a wolf?"

"It seems appropriate," she choked out.

"You didn't seem to regret that you were about to be eaten … or whatever was going to happen."

Her cheeks burned. "If you think you can take me from Ahch-To, you're wrong. I'll stop you. I'm stronger now."

"So am I."

"I have a master."

He laughed, the sound rusty. "I know all about your master. He was my master first, remember?"

"You didn't deserve Master Luke," she shot back.

Even in the moonlight she could swear his face darkened. "You have no idea what you're talking about," he grated. They stared at each other stonily for a long moment, then he spread his arms. No lightsaber.

"Why are you here?"

"Just to talk."

"Talk?"

"Unless there's something you'd prefer to do."

"Fight?" Even without a lightsaber or staff, she was good.

He looked amused. "No. Not fight."

It was a moment before comprehension dawned. Rage threatened to swamp her thoughts, but she fought it back.

"You're not a Jedi, Rey. You don't belong here. You should come with me."

"My master would stop you. _I'd_ stop you."

"You could have a better master."

"You could _never_ be my master!"

Again he laughed, the sound easier this time. "We'll see."

He'd said that to her before, and he was wrong then, too. She raised her chin. "I won't go with you. I won't do _anything_ with you."

He stared at her a long minute, his steady eyes memorizing her face. "If you say so." He nodded briefly, then turned toward the dark path between two crumbling huts. "Try to sleep. We'll talk tomorrow."

She stared after him, heart pounding, until his footsteps faded into silence.

She didn't know why she let him go. She could have leapt on his back as soon as he turned away. Attacked him as soon as she saw him. Called to Master Luke. Instead she spoke with him as if he were human instead merely a vessel for the dark side, listened to him even as he insulted her master and made insinuations, his eyes hot on her as if he had the right.

And she didn't hate it, and that frightened her.

* * *

 _He was tall, shoulders hunched, fists clenched. He stood across a clearing in the forest and stared at her, his gaze unimpeded by any mask. In his hand was a lightsaber, its carnelian blade spitting and hissing._

 _This time she didn't wait for him to come to her. She fled, determined to escape. He had almost caught her before, and she knew if he got her he wouldn't let her go._

_The thought was terrifying … and thrilling._

 _She stumbled to her knees and he was on her, hand grasping her shoulder and roughly flipping her over. She was panicked, excited, wanted to strike and bite and wrap her legs around him._

 _He grasped her hands and pushed his fingers between hers, then dragged them up and pinned them beside her head. His eyes fastened on her mouth and he bent down slowly, slowly, so slowly she couldn't help straining towards him, and then he turned suddenly, so it was not his lips that met hers but the scar at his chin. He twisted his face across her so it rubbed against her mouth, demanding she worship it. And she did, dragging her tongue against its jagged length to where it disappeared into his hair. He shuddered and released her hands, pushing both his arms around her back and anchoring her to him. Her fingers buried in his hair, holding him just as fiercely._

* * *

Rey awoke with a start.

 _Oh, god._

When she fell back asleep, hours later, it was to the desperate hope that Kylo Ren had spent a dreamless night.

* * *

The stack of seashells collapsed, scattering over the short, coarse grass. Why wouldn't they collapse? Shells weren't meant to stack. She had a difficult time telling herself it made sense to stack shells. She knew it was merely an exercise, that it was designed to strengthen her powers, but a lifetime spent struggling for subsistence made it difficult not to regard it as frivolous.

"Again."

Rey gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. She saw the shells draw close, nudge together, pushing on top of each other.

Pushing against his mind. Pushing her down in the brushy undergrowth beneath an endless tree. _Am I the first man to make you bleed?_

The shells crashed again.

"Is something bothering you, Rey?"

"No," she answered sharply, tensing mentally. Master Luke was too respectful to shove his way into her consciousness the way Kylo Ren had, she knew, but at the moment she felt too raw to let her guard down at all. Not with the dream ricocheting in her mind, returning the moment she pushed it away. She felt shuddery, and wished, bitterly, that she could simply tell Luke she didn't want to train that day. He was unyielding when it came to training. _You don't become a Jedi by doing things that come easily. Jedi are created through discipline and deprivation._

It should have been natural to her; she'd been disciplined and deprived her entire life. She _wanted_ to learn. She _wanted_ to become an expert in the Force. She wasn't afraid of hard work. But stars, she was sick of having nothing, doing nothing, and seeing no one. She'd waited for her family her as long as she could remember, and now she was spending the rest of her life training. Because that's what the Jedi did. It was a religious order. You entered it, served it, lived by its precepts.

Assuming you felt a calling to it.

Luke regarded her with concern. "Are you sure?"

She hesitated. Why was she remaining silent? Why hadn't she told him immediately? Gone to him after Kylo Ren left, or the next morning as he broke his fast? Why was she holding it as if was a secret between the two of them?

 _Your nephew was here, and it upset me, but I didn't hate it. And then I had a dream about him, and I didn't hate that either. And it wasn't my first dream about him. I dream about him every night, and I don't want to stop. When I'm with him I_ feel.

She could never tell Luke that.

So she stayed silent, and shut her eyes, and began to restack the shells.

* * *

"Enjoy your gruel?"

She swung around, unsurprised. He was lounging in the moonlight against the crumbling curve of a neglected rock hut, unmasked. Again. In the shadows, as always.

"I've eaten worse," she said stiffly.

"No doubt. You don't have to do that any more, though. There's nothing you have to do now. So why are you here … doing nothing? Burying yourself? Pretending you're as bloodless as he is? Why don't you tell him you hate this?"

She winced. "It's for my own good. He doesn't want me to hate—"

"That's true. He doesn't want you to hate. He doesn't want you to love. He doesn't want you to feel anything. I remember it well."

Her shoulders tensed and she turned from him, starting down the ancient trail. "Are you saying I should follow _your_ path?"

"I'm saying any philosophy that forbids love and other emotions isn't rational. Why would we even have emotions if we weren't supposed to feel them?"

Duty impelled her to recite, "Emotions cloud judgment and allow the dark si—"

"Emotions make us human."

"And love exists in the First Order?" she challenged.

He hesitated. "It's not forbidden."

"Do you love someone?"

He stared at her so long she became uncomfortable. "I said it isn't forbidden. I didn't say it was a marriage service. We're allowed to feel the full range of emotions. They just expect them not to interfere with our responsibilities." Which was true. Yet the Knights of Ren lived austerely, none more so than their master. They trained. They studied. They completed missions.

They carried out the bidding of a monster disguised as a mentor.

"So you're just a soldier."

His face tightened. He had never wanted a life so narrow, but had ended up with one nonetheless. "And you just want to be a monk?"

She glared at him, furious, but he didn't look away.

"You didn't tell him I was here. Why?"

At that she looked away. Not because she didn't have an answer, of course. Although she didn't. She should have told Luke. Something was wrong with her, plainly. "Tell me about the Force bond."

His expression told her he wasn't deceived, but he didn't press her. "It's strong. The strongest I've ever heard of. You didn't notice it in the forest on Starkiller Base?"

"We had it then?"

"We had it ever since we pushed into each other's minds, although it's getting stronger. How do you think you suddenly developed your lightsaber skills? Our Force bond fed them to you."

"I didn't ask for it!"

"Yet you took it like mother's milk."

She ground her teeth. "What can it do?"

"We can share thoughts. Emotions. So I know you're unhappy here—"

" _Shut up_ —"

"—we can assist each other in battle. Help each other heal. Request help, if necessary."

 _As if I'd ask for your help._ "And we're special this way?"

He inclined his head. "It's much stronger than Luke and my mother's. She couldn't even find him without the map."

"Wait, what? Your mother is…?"

"Force-sensitive, yes. You shouldn't tell anyone. Nobody's supposed to know."

"And you didn't tell—"

His answer was curt. "No."

She took a moment to absorb that. Kylo Ren, the right hand of Supreme Leader Snoke, had known where Luke was—where she was—and hadn't told Snoke. Or told him that General Organa was secretly Force-sensitive. "Does she know you know?"

"I don't think so. But you can't grow up with someone that strong in the Force and not figure some things out."

"She never told you?"

"They weren't big on talking. Yelling, yes. I figured things out by what wasn't said. That was most things."

Rey absorbed that in silence. General Organa had never told her own son she was Force-sensitive? Even when he was a child and experiencing the strange drifts of power and emotional frustration Rey was currently maneuvering through, badly? Never tried to help him refine his control and deal with the eddies of light and dark swirling over and around him, combing for weaknesses to nestle against and nurture?

She stared at him for long minute before moving to a patch of grass near the cliff. He hesitated a long minute before following, wondering if she'd forgotten he was there. She sat down and drew her knees up to her chin, and he suspected she had.

But then she turned her head to look at him and nodded at the grass beside her. After a moment he folded his long form down so they sat side by side.

"Why didn't you tell him?" He knew what she meant. She wasn't asking about Leia.

He turned his head away, just as she had when he'd asked why she hadn't told Luke.

He had no answer. It was unimaginable that he hadn't told the Supreme Leader. He had known her location for weeks, shielding the information as remorselessly as he had razed Tuanul. Fortunately, increased Resistance attacks had claimed the Supreme Leader's attention, and the further training he had planned for Kylo had been postponed indefinitely. And right now—right now he believed Kylo was on Dromund Kaas, searching for the remains of Darth Thanaton's storied library, hoping to refine his darkness even further with long-forgotten lore.

She adjusted her stance and her arm brushed against unexpected ridges in his cloak before jerking back. "That's your lightsaber," she accused.

He shrugged. "I said I didn't have one last night; I didn't say I didn't bring it at all. For all I knew you were going to be armed tonight, since you knew I was here. You do like to fire first."

She rolled her eyes. "I didn't have your privileged upbringing. I fired first or I didn't fire at all."

"Don't put too much store in that upbringing," he said dryly. "Unless you consider droids and security details appropriate childhood companions. I saw them a hell of a lot more often than I saw my parents."

She frowned. General Organa was so generous, so wise. And Han Solo had been gruff, but also warm. She still felt honored that he'd invited her to join the crew of the _Millennium Falcon_. "That doesn't sound right," she said, more carefully than she'd intended.

"No, it's not right," he said tightly. "But it's the truth. I've never lied to you. Some people aren't meant to be parents. If you're lucky, you only get one of them. I wasn't lucky."

For a moment she wanted to snarl. _Poor little rich boy._ He hadn't been lucky? He didn't know what bad luck was. For decades Rey had longed for her family. She remembered her mother kissing her and then pushing off her clinging arms. Handing her over to Unkar Plutt. Telling her there was no reason to cry, that she was being difficult, that they'd return soon.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years of starving and scrapping and fighting off predators, from wolves to thieving dealers to greedy men who saw something they wanted and tried to take it. They'd left her there for fifteen years, left her with a lie that tied her stupid faithful heart to that hellhole, waiting, hoping.

 _Some people aren't meant to be parents._

It was the ultimate trick. People who seemed perfectly normal, yet were missing an essential part. And a ship won't fly if it doesn't have the necessary parts.

What was it in some parents that created life, then destroyed it?

They weren't cruel. Surely she would have remembered if her parents were cruel. But they had left her on Jakku, alone and terrified. She couldn't see how both could be true.

And no one could convince her that General Organa and Han Solo had been cruel parents. But General Organa had been deeply involved with government and the Resistance and the Rebel Alliance for her entire adulthood, she'd been told on D'Qar. The woman worked all day and long into the evening. And none of Han Solo's legendary escapades involved changing diapers. Maybe Kylo Ren was right. Maybe they shouldn't have become parents.

Maybe her own shouldn't have. Maybe they'd decided to do something about it. Maybe if she'd been an easier child, softer and quieter…

"Don't." His voice was clipped. "Don't excuse your parents' weaknesses as your responsibility. They were already there. You were made to suffer them, but they're not your creation."

She hadn't told him anything of her parents. Had he pulled it from her mind, or just felt her mood?

He stood up and shook out his cloak. "Don't dream about me tonight. I need some rest; I was up all night. Hard to get back to sleep after that last one."

He was long gone before she moved. It was several more minutes before her face stopped burning.


	3. Chapter 3

_His face was human and his hands were empty. When she saw him he was already streaking towards her, his long legs eating up the distance between them. She turned to run, knowing it would madden both of them. She stayed just out of reach, only far enough away to tantalize both of them. Then he lunged for her, knocking her to the forest floor and trapping her beneath him. Sliding up her body so that she felt every tense, hard inch of him, pressing her into the ground and raking his teeth against the curve of her neck as he began to drag her skirt up. She reached down and pushed his hand away._

 _She could pull it up faster herself._

* * *

They were getting worse.

She accepted, now, in the privacy of her hut, that he'd been the subject of her earlier dreams. She'd thought he represented danger. But the dreams weren't dangerous any longer. They were merely tempting.

No, that wasn't true; they were still dangerous.

Just in an entirely different way.

* * *

Kylo Ren stared at the ceiling of his shuttle. He couldn't lie to himself and say Rey's dreams were unwelcome, but they were becoming increasingly intense. He had no chance of getting back to sleep after that.

Did they affect her the same way? Was she lying in her hermit's den thinking about him?

He was foolish to have come to Ahch-To. After everything he'd done—everything that had been done to him—he was still reaching for something he couldn't name, still nursing a traitorous light against his heart. He felt it in her, glowing like a sun, devastating and purifying. He wanted her like he once wanted power, even as he feared her light. He had no right to be here, no right to want her.

Yet he couldn't bring himself to leave.

He'd only seen her in daylight once, on Takodana. She had been bright and strong and without regret, everything he'd never been. He'd been drawn to her with painful intensity.

Now he was visiting her only under the cover of night, a creature who didn't deserve the sun. He'd been in the shadows for so long he didn't know if he could emerge from them if he wanted.

In the shadows he didn't have to hide; they welcomed him. All his life, they were the only things that wanted him. He'd been ignored, humored, and finally shunted aside, and the shadows that had been lurking at the edges his entire life had moved forward and engulfed him.

He wanted love. He wanted acceptance, he hungered for it. He knew he was supposed to find that with his family. He knew, somewhere in him, that they loved him, Leia and Han Solo and maybe even Luke Skywalker. Yet the more desperately he needed that love the more it seemed to slip away, the more he seemed met with disappointment and puzzlement, until it felt like he was met only with dismissal.

He remembered, sometimes, that it hadn't always been like that, not really. Not when he was fully conscious: He willed those thoughts away as if they dripped poison. But sometimes, in the dreamspace between sleep and waking, he felt warm, and safe, and loved. He felt his mother stroke his hair, felt Han Solo toss him in the air and try to coax a laugh. Remembered Chewbacca carrying him on his shoulders while ululating soothingly. Felt those things as if they were happening, as if he had his entire life before him and nothing to fear or regret, although he'd known fear and regret and anger as long as he could remember.

Then he'd open his eyes and find he was in his quarters, sterile and underheated, and remembered that he loved no one and nobody loved him. Snoke had seen to that.

Kylo had seen to that.

It was ironic, really. His mother had sent him away to Luke Skywalker to learn. But he had never wanted to be a Jedi. Swathed in serenity, like a crystal vase wrapped in tissue? No emotions? No love? That was madness. It was like choosing to amputate a healthy limb.

And yet Han Solo had gone off on his adventures, and his mother had sent him to Luke, and Luke had taught him kindly but distantly, as if he were any student and not his nephew. And finally Kylo could see the benefit to not feeling love, which was not feeling its lack.

He knew he could never relinquish all emotions. He vibrated with them; they burst out uncontrollably. He wondered that he kept them as contained as he did. Telling him to stop having the feelings had been doomed from the start. He could no more extinguish them than he could stop breathing.

But he'd lived without love for years now, and the place that it had once filled ached in its emptiness.

He was fooling himself if he thought she'd ever willingly share his life. The Force bond was an accident, an exquisitely cruel accident. A curse, not a blessing. She would never regard him as anything but an enemy. And why not? He had invaded her mind. Held her against her will. Knocked her unconscious against a tree and then fought her for supremacy. When he'd been unable to suppress his admiration for her and entreated her to join him, she had been disgusted.

And being here with her now, his feelings were only more intense. The first night he'd thought, naively, that she'd be more receptive; surely the dreams were affecting her as powerfully as they were him. And he wasn't fool enough to think they weren't reflecting anything that hadn't already been there. But she would have none of his mastery, the only thing that had ever brought him victory. She was proud and independent, a queen indeed.

She had hated his mask right from the first. She would have him bereft of shield as well. It had been years since he had approached others without a display of dominance, yet he knew he had no choice. Not with her.

He was unmoored, and she his only beacon.

He turned over, gripping the pillow tightly.

He shouldn't have come to Ahch-To.

* * *

She was waiting for him the next night, sitting at the same spot as the night before.

This time he didn't wait for an invitation, simply sinking down beside her. He bit down on the reflex to make a provoking comment, a custom of such longstanding he felt almost rude not observing it.

For her he would lay down his defenses.

"I hate this," she said, eyes straight ahead.

Kylo didn't respond. He couldn't be certain what she was talking about, not entirely. There were so many things to hate. But every moment near each other and every word passed between them increased their sensitivity to each other. Her independence, her devotion to those she cared about, her painful integrity; they were all becoming as familiar to him as the feel of his mask. He wondered what she was recognizing in him in turn.

"I just want—"

"To belong," he said, not thinking, and knew he was right.

"Yes." She turned to look at him. "Did you pull that out of my mind?"

"No. That's just what we all want." Belonging. Not with everyone.

Just with someone.

"Even you?"

His laugh was low, bitter. "Especially me."

"Do you belong where you are now? The First Order? The dark side?"

He hesitated. Opened his mouth to answer. Shut it finally, staring into the night.

She waited a long time before she started to worry. He seemed so lost. Younger than she'd realized. Younger than he actually was.

Finally he looked back at her. "I thought I did."

"But not anymore?"

He didn't answer, and she didn't press him.

The sea mist thickened until it wasn't mist and her cloak wasn't doing its job. Rey stood up. "I'm going in."

Kylo clambered to his feet. He turned his face away quickly so she wouldn't read his expression, but she could feel his disappointment.

"Come in."

His head jerked around, and he stared at her in disbelief.

"It's warm in there … comparatively. And dry. Comparatively."

His ship was completely warm and completely dry, but he had no desire to return to it. "All right."

He followed her into her little hut, straining his eyes to catch the details while she knelt by the fireplace and kindled a small blaze. The place was tiny, barely larger than one of the _Finalizer_ 's lifts. A pallet on the floor, a small chest. A single stool beside the chest—presumably it also served as a table, when needed.

He didn't want to take her stool, and he doubted she'd appreciate him sitting on her pallet, so he waited for her. She shook out her cloak and draped it over the chest, then held her hand out. For a moment he just stared, uncomprehending, until she waved her hand imperiously. She was taking his cloak. Like this was a normal visit. Like he was a normal person.

His brain tried to recalibrate itself even as he handed over the coal-dark garment, watching as she fanned it open and draped it over her own. Seeing the blackness cover the gray wrap made him feel a little uncomfortable for some reason, and he looked away.

When he turned back she was sitting in front of the fire, easing her boots off and allowing her feet to warm. They were the most absurdly dainty things he'd ever seen, and he had an insane urge to cup his hands around them and warm them himself.

"You can take yours off. If you want," she added as he sank down beside her. She felt a little self-conscious about taking off her boots in front of him, but she was not going settle down in her hut on a rainy evening without warming her feet by the fire. That was ridiculous.

He hesitated and finally decided he'd waited too long to take them off. It would look strange if he did it now. He stretched his feet out to the fire, though, and cringed when he saw how huge his booted feet looked compared to her bare ones.

She noticed the contrast as well and smiled, and he felt himself relax a bit.

"Have you ever been happy?"

He tensed, but he could see nothing but curiosity on her face. "I don't know," he said after a long moment. "I don't remember being happy. I've felt satisfaction when I've done something well. Learned something. I don't know about happiness."

"Even when you were little?"

"I remember … I don't remember being happy. I remember _remembering_ being happy. It's too far away to remember the feeling any more. I just remember thinking of it sometime later. Like watching a holo of me being happy rather than actually remembering it."

"Do you ever think that you were made wrong?"

"Every day."

"Like everyone else has something that you don't? Some quality that made them whole and normal and lovable. And you were just born without it."

"You don't believe that." She couldn't, surely. Not when FN-2187 and Han Solo and the Wookiee had cared about her enough to invade Starkiller Base to save her and the former trooper had taken up arms to protect her.

The sadness on her face shook him, and he remembered, with a stab, the loneliness he'd felt in her. "My family left me on Jakku when I was little. They told me they'd come back for me—maybe they thought I'd stop screaming if they said that. I waited for 15 years. That's how much I wanted to believe that they weren't just getting rid of me. I waiting all those years for them because if I didn't, that would mean they looked at their lives without me and thought about their lives with me and decided they preferred it without me. And I didn't want to believe that, so I stayed. If BB-8 hadn't needed my help I'd still be there, scrubbing junk and checking the horizon."

As much as he'd taunted her by calling her _scavenger_ , he couldn't imagine her trapped on that useless mound of sand and detritus. It was obscene for someone of her power and radiance to be restricted to a life so small and meaningless.

Yet after being released from that trap she opted to remain on this isolated rock and pattern herself after a man who was also powerful and radiant, but had chosen oblivion over life. Nothing made sense.

"Maybe we _are_ missing something," he admitted, rubbing his face. "Maybe we got the Force to take its place."

She looked at him in surprise. Kylo, Luke, Leia, apparently—they were the only Force users she knew. Were they all actually lame creatures made whole with a supernatural ability? "Master Luke and General Organa aren't—they aren't like us," she said finally. They seemed more finished, somehow. Whole.

"Yes, they are. They just show it in different ways. My mother can't bring herself to do anything but fight against whatever monolith she can find. And Luke has buried himself at the end of the galaxy and tried like hell to make sure no one could find him."

"What about Snoke?"

Kylo went still. "He isn't like anyone. His body's just a shell that his power inhabits. Whatever humanity he had was shed long ago."

"Was that what you were trying to do? Shed your humanity?"

"Not my humanity. I told you, I never wanted to get rid of my emotions. But I tried to shed the light side. It didn't work. I've ignored it and starved it and done everything I could do to excise it."

"Are you still trying?"

"No, it doesn't work," he sighed, rubbing his face. The list of things he'd done to make himself whole was long and disheartening. On the walkway at Starkiller, he'd been so desperate. Surely that would complete him, push him over the edge. And yet instead of coming closer, the edge had careened away from view as soon as he'd done it. It was distant and no longer inviting. "I can't get rid of it, nothing works. It's part of me. I've stopped fighting it. I just want to become whole."

She probed at his mind, delicately, delicately. She could feel the truth of his words, and how tired he was. "What's the first thing you remember? As a child?"

"Wanting."

"Wanting what?"

"I don't remember. Just feeling upset at something I didn't have, and longing for it. Missing it like it was part of me."

She didn't realize she'd put her hand on Kylo's until he flinched. She started to pull it back, but he turned his hand over and seized hers, tightly grasping it for a moment before loosening his grip.

"What about you?"

"Being left on Jakku. Begging them not to leave me, and them going anyway."

He failed to stop his hand from tightening on hers. It was so like how he'd been left with Luke that he half suspected she'd pulled it from her mind. "Is that your only memory of your family?"

She nodded.

 _You're lucky_ was on his tongue, but he forced himself not to say it. He could feel the bile that rose every time he thought of his childhood and fought it down. Beneath it was a bittersweet longing that stung more deeply than rage.

"Have you ever seen a wolf?"

He blinked. "What? In real life?"

"Umm-hmm."

"No. Only in holos."

"What kind of holos?"

"Fairy stories, mostly. Folk tales. Force training doesn't include a lot of zoology."

She felt a stab of envy. She could imagine him as a child curled up on General Organa's lap as she stroked his hair and read him stories filled with magical creatures. She didn't know how he couldn't remember the happiness in those moments, remember it and hold it close.

"I never heard any fairy stories. What were they like?"

"Stupid. Full of things that weren't possible, with improbable happy endings. Always happy. They made real life feel like a disappointment. In fairy stories everything works out. In real life things fall apart. People can only ever let you down. And you—you let them down as well, even when you think you're doing what's right. In a fairy tale I wouldn't have thrown my life away. I wouldn't have tied myself to Snoke. I wouldn't have broken my mother's heart. But life isn't a fairy tale. Life is dirty and hopeless and permanent."

She absorbed that in silence, unsure whether she should offer some reassurance. What could she say? He wasn't wrong. Nothing he said was wrong.

She winced a little at her own cynicism. There was more, she knew. There were people like Finn, who'd risked his own life to help her. There was—there was—

Her optimistic impulse failed. She hadn't been out in the galaxy enough to know more. She'd left on her mission to retrieve Luke Skywalker only a couple of days after landing on D'Qar with Finn and Chewbacca. She'd traded the desperation of Jakku for the desolation of Ahch-To so quickly her time with Finn and BB-8 seemed like a dream. The possibilities of the galaxy were as remote as they'd ever been.

"There are wolves on Jakku, aren't there?"

She turned and looked at him, her eyes somber. "Luke asked me about them a few days ago. That's why I started dreaming about them. Or you, I guess."

"What did you tell him?"

"Lies."

He looked taken aback, and a ghost of a smile touched her lips.

"I told him about a girl I tried to help. Her mother had died and she didn't have anyone, and she was weaker than the other kids. I felt sorry for her. I told her she could live with me."

"And you made it up?"

"No, that was the truth. But I told him she took a walk after dinner one night and that I didn't go because I was tired. That's not why I didn't go. That's what I told her the first time she asked. I was trying to be kind. I'd been alone for years, and she loved to talk. I thought it would be nice, and it was for a while, but she couldn't stop talking, not for a minute. So I told her I was tired, but she kept pestering me. Finally I told her that she never shut up and I'd go crazy if I had to listen to her for one more minute. She looked like I'd hit her with my staff. She started to cry and ran off, and I was so mad I didn't go after her. I didn't even think about the wolves until the next morning, when I realized she hadn't come back."

His voice was rough. "That wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was," she said simply. She was surprised at how steady her voice was, how she could accept this with Kylo Ren and not Master Luke. "I don't understand now how I could have been so cruel, but I can't go back and do anything about it. I had to be hard on Jakku. I didn't have a choice. I had to let anger and selfishness and even spite fuel me, because sometimes they were the only things I had."

"The only emotions that didn't hurt," murmured Kylo, nodding.

"If I hadn't had them I would have been just like her. I don't want to be an angry person. I don't want to be selfish. But I can't pretend they're not an important part of me. They kept me alive. I had them before I had the Force. If the Force ever leaves me, if I have nothing and nobody, I know what will see me through."

Acid burned in his mouth. "I understand."

She turned to look at him. She had no idea how he'd react, but she couldn't stop herself from asking. "Why did you—" How did you ask someone why they turned from everyone they knew and committed themselves to the dark side? "Why do you follow Darth Vader's ways?"

She waited, half holding her breath, but he didn't answer. The silence stretched until it became overbearing, and finally she tried to ease its weight. "I never realized an ocean could be so—"

"Nothing else made sense."

She fell silent, reproaching herself for asking him something so private. Something she knew curled right around his soul.

"He spoke to me," Kylo said, his voice hushed. "When Han Solo was off on his adventures and my mother had sent me away, he stayed with me. He was the only one who did. When he began talking about the dark side, I thought he was trying to help me. That everyone else was just giving me empty platitudes, and he was the only one who cared enough to tell me the truth."

She wondered what she'd do if the dead sought her out. Even on this island steeped in Jedi lore, she'd heard nothing. "What does he say now?"

"He hasn't spoken to me since I left Luke Skywalker. I've tried. Even on Starkiller Base, I would pay homage to my grandfather and ask for his guidance, but he's been silent."

Rey frowned. "Why would he suddenly stop talking to you?"

Kylo's expression darkened. "There's no reason why he would. Not if it were him."

"What—you mean—"

"The Supreme Leader is very skilled in mental manipulation. He's the one who taught me. It wouldn't have been difficult for him, especially not with a foolish child desperate for someone to pay attention to him."

Rey felt anger spike inside her, his and her own. The self-hatred lacing Kylo's anger made the back of her eyes ache, but she forced down both the anger and the pity. Snoke had targeted Kylo when he was just a boy, haunting him—lying to him. Why hadn't Luke stopped him? Why hadn't Han and Leia protected him?

"He told me to bring you to him, you know that? Back on Starkiller. He said he was going to show me the dark side."

For a moment she forgot how to breathe, her blood turning to sludge inside her veins. "You—when you said you wanted to teach me—"

"No," he absently, facing the fire, his eyes distant. "I had some vague plan to steal a shuttle, and we'd lose ourselves in the rush off base. I'd never take you to him."

He jumped when her warm hand touched his chin, turning him to face her. He hadn't had regular physical contact since he was a child, and the fact that it was actually happening in real life instead of just his head dazzled him. That it was Rey doing so…

She reached up with her other hand now, cupping his face, leaning towards him. He realized what she was going to do and froze. For a moment panic gripped him and he fought a mindless urge to leap back, forcing himself to remain still as she gently brushed her lips against his.

His lips trembled beneath hers. He didn't pull away, and after a moment his eyelids slid shut.

It had been an impulse borne of gratitude, not much more than a gesture, but his longing awoke her own wistfulness. Instead of pulling back she pressed soft kisses along the fullness of his lower lip, drawing them along to the corner of his mouth.

He reached up and pushed one hand behind her neck, holding her to him. She pulled back just enough to see his eyes open, slumberous, before drifting shut again, and she leaned towards him. She didn't have much experience at this sort of thing—really, she only had experience of sleazy men trying things that got them knocked to the ground—but she'd seen things. Imagined things.

Dreamed things.

Shyly she nudged her tongue against his lips. His hand tightened against her neck, and he parted his lips on a soft breath. She pushed into his mouth carefully, not sure if she was doing it right, and he met her tongue with his own, stroking it along hers until she gasped into his mouth. He sucked at her tongue and she jerked back, panting.

He stared at her, transfixed, before forcing himself to drag his eyes from her and stand up. "I should go," he said, getting his cloak and starting towards the door, such as it was—a plank of wood covered with oilcloth.

She got up and followed him. "It's raining."

He shook his head. "I've been out in worse," he said, opening the door.

"You don't have to be," she told him, not looking at him as she tugged him back from the door and wedged it shut. She pulled a blanket from the foot of the pallet and spread it between the pallet and the fire, then draped another on top of it.

She sat on her pallet and released her hair from its buns, then crawled under the covers still in her clothes. She had some loose clothes she'd been given at the infirmary on D'Qar that she normally slept in, but she wasn't going to change into them in front of him. It was enough that she'd suggested he stay the night. More than enough. It was insane.

It was even more insane that she'd almost asked him to share her pallet. Not to continue what they'd been doing, merely to hold each other. Her desire to be close to him was both sharp and aching, an old injury covered by a fresh burn.

Rey curled on up on her side with a determinedly casual expression and waited for him to settle down as well—or leave. She didn't know what she was thinking, and she pushed any possibilities out of her mind before it could gain hold.

Kylo stood by the door for a long time before turning around. He laid his cloak back on the chest, then removed his cowl and pulled out his lightsaber, setting them on the chest as well. He pulled off his boots and placed them against the wall before approaching the pile of blankets. He felt overdressed, but also like one or both of them might bolt if he removed anything else.

It was absurd, really. He'd been so open with her, so unguarded, that the thought of removing his surcoat shouldn't have concerned him. He'd certainly be more comfortable without it. But the kiss—that unimaginable kiss—had made him sharply aware of things he couldn't quite put a name to, but didn't wish to disturb.

Even eschewing his typical forcefulness, he had begun to feel relaxed rather than vulnerable. So rare a sensation for him, yet it had felt natural with her. Perhaps this other tenseness would pass as well, for both of them.

He wouldn't delude himself about where it could lead. The kiss had been so unexpected, so devastating. He would hold it in his mind and not allow himself to long for more.

But as much as he tried, his mind was a traitor.

"You can pull one of them over you," she suggested when he settled down atop the layers of blankets.

"I'm okay."

"What happened to your belt?''

"It had a tracker in it. I left it on the base before I came to you."

"So they wouldn't…?"

"Umm-hmm."

"What about your ship? Doesn't that have a tracking system?"

"I took care of it. They think I'm somewhere in the Outer Rim."

"Hunting me?"

"Looking for books."

"Books?"

He smiled, just a little. "The Knights of Ren spend more time studying than you might assume."

"You and Luke have a lot in common."

She was surprised when he merely shrugged. "In some ways."

"Were you really going to teach me?"

He turned on his side so he could face her. "Yes. I told you, I've never lied to you, Rey."

"Have you ever thought of leaving him?"

He was quiet for a long time. "Sometimes I've wanted to. But I've done too much. There's no place I can go. I had a chance, but I was too—too—"

She knew what he was talking about, and for the first time anger didn't flare in her to think of it. It was a tragedy. But it was his tragedy, not hers. "It's okay," she said softly. He didn't have to finish.

"No, it's not okay. I let him—I let him in. I tried to empty everything in me that _was_ me, and let him fill it, and then I'd be strong and important. My parents weren't good parents, but they—something was wrong with me. It wasn't just Snoke. If it was just him I should have been able to resist him. My father was right. I was never normal."

She reached out and touched his cheek, and he shuddered. "You can't be anyone else. But you don't have to be with Snoke."

He covered her hand with his and shut his eyes. After several minutes his hold slackened, but she didn't move her hand. As sleep overtook her she wondered what Luke would say if he could see them. What he'd say if she told him that the light inside his nephew still glowed.

* * *

 _He didn't run towards her. His walk was measured, deliberate. She felt the weight of his gaze on her, noted the faint, predatory smile curving his lips._

 _She leaned against a tree, savoring the moments of anticipation before he reached her._

 _His expression was arrogant, that of a man certain of his victory. He stopped before her and stood there looking at her, his gaze licking up and down. Neither made a move towards the other, and his smile grew, mockingly._

 _She slapped him, hard, and he didn't recoil, eagerness in his face. His raised his hands to grasp at her, but before he could she grabbed his face in both hands, dragging him down to her level and biting at his lips, marking them as hers and then covering the redness with heated kisses. He gasped into her mouth and she drew in his excitement, pushing him to the leaf-strewn ground. She followed him down and took her proper place above him._

 _He could never conquer her. He could only recognize her, and revel in his own conquest._

* * *

The first thing she was aware of was a deep, muttered exclamation. She opened her eyes in time to see the door to her hut swinging shut, and realized she was now alone.


	4. Chapter 4

She was waiting for him again, standing and staring out at nothing. She didn't look at him when he came to stand beside her, simply turned and started for her hut, inclining her head in an implicit invitation.

Of course he followed.

The fire was already healthy, and there was a rough blanket spread in front of it. Plainly the invitation wasn't impetuous.

She took his cloak and hers and laid them on the chest, then sat down on the blankets and tugged off her boots. This time when he sat next to her he pulled his off as well, setting them neatly against the wall beside hers. He turned back to find her studying him, her eyes thoughtful as they searched his face. "Why'd you come here?"

He opened his mouth to give her the same explanation he'd given her the first night. It wasn't a lie. He'd come to see her because he'd been on her mind, more and more, and if it were all the invitation he was going to get he would seize it.

Because he'd ached, missing a part of himself. And this was his only chance to become whole.

"Not to bring me to Snoke."

"No."

"Did you have a plan?"

He stiffened. "No," he finally admitted. Her first dream of him, of them, had issued a clarion call. He'd left the moment he had an excuse in place and had spent his traveling time carefully not making any plans.

He realized now it was because he couldn't stand the thought of them merely being smoke.

"When did you meet Snoke in the first place?"

He shook his head. "I've always known him. He's in my earliest memories."

Rey frowned. "How?"

"He was in my mind, talking to me, as long as I remember. I was too young to shield myself from him. He flattered me, except when it served him better to undermine me. He told me I was smarter and stronger than everyone else. That my parents didn't love me, that they hadn't wanted to have me, that my father kept leaving because he'd been trapped into marrying my mother when she became pregnant with me. That everyone else was jealous of my power and my lineage. It was really a perfect arrangement. If my parents had spent any time with me, if Luke had had fewer students … there were a lot of ifs. As it was I was so weak that he barely had to set a trap for me at all. He just opened the door to the dark side and I ran in. That's when the displays of power began. And then my grandfather starting talking to me, I thought. And between the things he told me and what Snoke said, my path seemed clear."

She tried to clamp down on her horror, but he could probably feel it. "Did you ever try to—" He looked at her, his expression hopeless, and it was a minute before she was able to finish. "Did you ever try to tell Luke?"

He shook his head. "I thought about telling him. At one point I decided to. Then I thought about how he'd look at me, and I couldn't do it. All of this, all these years, because I was a coward." He'd thought of it so many times over the years, and still had to push it from his mind the moment it appeared. If he lingered on it, that moment Ben Solo's weakness decided his life, he would go mad.

Rey was ashamed to realize she understood why he'd felt that. Master Luke seemed, somehow, beyond the petty human concerns of hurt and longing and jealousy. He was radiant with the light side. Even his humbleness was like a reproach. "And you stayed with Snoke all that time?"

"I didn't want to stay, at first. I regretted it immediately. I told myself my parents would come for me, and I was … so relieved. I thought they'd get me and fix everything and Luke would help me find a way to keep Snoke away from me for good. And then … nothing. They never came. I finally stopped hoping. I haven't seen my mother since I left Luke's temple. On Starkiller, that was the first time I'd seen my father in 20 years. The reason he insisted I remove my helmet is that he hadn't seen me in person since I was sent to Luke. The last time he saw me, I had a bowl cut C-3PO had given me."

He let that sink in for a minute. She wasn't sure which one of them the respite was for. "So yes, I stayed with Snoke all that time. I've been with him longer than I was with Luke … or my parents. He's been the longest constant in my life."

"But you were willing to leave him? When you asked me to go with you?"

He didn't say anything, just dipped his head in assent.

She scooted closer to him and slipped her hand through the crook of his arm. He stiffened just a little before relaxing. She leaned against his side and let him take some of her weight, and he accepted it. She could sense wistfulness throb through their bond, felt it answered on her side.

They were quiet for a long time, the silence broken only by the crackling of the fire.

* * *

 _She was alone in the forest. There was nothing to challenge her, and the silence was overwhelming._

 _She should be relieved. He'd left, and the forest was hers. Yet for some_ _reason_ _the paths looked uninviting, the trees and brush objects instead of inspiration._

 _She wandered without purpose. There was nothing propelling her. She didn't have to stay, really. Nobody would stop her. But why would she leave the forest? It was her home._

 _Only hers, now._

 _She was not disappointed. The forest did not feel empty. It felt right. Everything was as it should be. Peaceful and serene. A glassy lake, its surface unbroken._

 _Not deadened…_

 _It was on her fourth mindless circuit of the pathways that she sensed something, just a nudge, and then an arm wrapped around her waist and tugged her back and there he was, stepping away from the shelter of a tree and pressing against her. Not fighting, not struggling, just letting his heat spread through her as she melted back against him until they breathed as a single movement._

* * *

Her hand was on his shoulder as he awoke and started to surge up. "Don't go," she said, her voice low. He hesitated, tense under her hand. "Put another bundle on the fire."

It was a long minute before he moved. He pushed back the blanket and rose to his knees, reaching for the pile of dried bundles. He didn't turn around after adding it to the fire, and she knew he was calming himself.

She took a moment to ground herself as well. The dream had affected both of them.

All the dreams had.

When he turned around Rey was standing between their pallets. She had undone the ties of her belt and was slipping the robes from her shoulders. His intake of breath was the only sound he made, but his dark eyes flared.

She was aware of the sounds of their breathing, hers unnaturally loud in her ears, his hard and jagged. His eyes darted over her unceasingly, covetously, even as color rose in his cheeks.

She should probably feel embarrassed. By her forwardness, by his eyes on her naked flesh, by the desire she didn't want to push away this time. His hungry gaze finally came to rest on her face, disbelieving, and she knew she was right.

Her hands were on the drawstring of her pants, tugging it loose, when his hands closed on hers, stopping them and carefully lifting them away. For a moment her heart stopped and disappointment began to overtake desire.

Then he moved closer to her, still on his knees, and hooked his fingers under her waistband. He dragged her trousers down, and the feel of the gathered waist brushing against her naked buttocks made her shake. His eyes never left her face. When the cloth pooled around her ankles he carefully lifted each foot in turn and pulled the fabric free.

He leaned back on his heels and let his eyes, those great dark eyes, rove over her reverently. She reached down to touch his shoulders, draw him up to her, but he startled her by lunging forward, wrapping both arms around her, and pressing his face against her belly.

She felt awash in him, surrounded. For a moment she didn't move, just reveled in his worship before she pushed her fingers through his hair. The thick waves slipped through her fingers, over them. He was like the waves beating at the shores of Ahch-To, overwhelming and inevitable, ready to consume her.

She wanted to let him. She wanted to _bask_ in it.

He turned his head from side to side, rubbing his face against her. Her blood caught fire, and she grabbed the shoulders of his surcoat, trying to draw him up. Instead he reached up and pulled her down to him. He framed her jaw with his hand and slanted his mouth on hers with none of the shyness of the previous night. His tongue pushed into her mouth and dragged along hers as his free hand splayed at the small of her back, fitting her to him. Even through the elaborate layers of his clothing his arousal jutted against her, the first that didn't make her shy away or swing her staff.

The fabric of his surcoat abraded her nipples, making her gasp and squirm. She tried undoing the surcoat's buttons, but it was hard to focus when he was devouring her mouth, consuming her. His hands were hot on her, making her forget her intent, her reason.

Her hands moved down to the second button. She plucked at it helplessly. "Help me," she pleaded.

"What?" he mumbled, lost.

"Take your clothes off," she said, louder than she meant.

He blinked at her. For a second he just stared, puzzled, before bending to her mouth again. Even as she started to repeat her request against his lips he reached down and worked clumsily at the tightly fitted buttons. After a moment of struggle he grabbed the fabric and jerked, buttons flying. She gasped, thrilled and horrified. He shoved the surcoat off and gave the tabard to the same treatment before dragging the pleated gambeson over his head and throwing it aside.

He was big, rangy and muscular, his torso marked by scars. At one side a vicious spiderweb reached out, gained on the walkway at Starkiller, while on the opposite shoulder a vivid pink line sliced halfway down his arm.

She'd done that. She'd changed him forever, marked him as hers all those months ago. Without thinking she pressed her mouth to the most twisted part of the line on his shoulder. His indrawn breath urged her on as she followed the mark down. She wasn't sure whether she was apologizing or asserting her dominion, and she didn't care. She halted at the tender inside of his elbow, tongue darting out to trace the ridges of tendon and muscle, and he shuddered. She turned and rubbed her face against his chest, unthinkingly mimicking his earlier gesture.

He grasped her head, hands engulfing her skull, and bent to press his lips against her hair.

She wanted to scream, and cry, and run, but mostly she wanted to keep going. She grasped the front of his trousers and searched for the fastener, which was hidden, because apparently one of the First Order's primary concerns was making clothing hard to remove. When she slid her fingers down inside, searching for the clasp, he gasped and released her head, reaching down to push her hand away. He shoved the suspenders down his arms and shucked his pants, and she panted, excited and a little afraid.

She'd seen naked men before. Pissing against walls, fucking whores, trying to entice her. Why they thought the sight of their cocks would be any enticement at all was beyond her, because the sight filled her with disgust most of the time, and laughter the rest.

But Kylo was beautiful all over, long and pale and _hers._

She reached out and touched him, and his cock jumped under her hand. She explored his shaft, marveling at its combination of softness and steel before he pulled her hand away. "I've never done this before," she admitted.

He wrapped her hands in his. "Neither have I."

Rey didn't know why she was startled. In a way it was as if he'd stopped growing up as soon as he'd gone to Snoke. On Starkiller his temper and possessiveness and even his empathy were like a child's. Now his grief weighed on him, betraying his growth. She could never tell him, but his regret was beautiful.

He touched her face. "I'm a fast learner," he said a little anxiously.

She couldn't help smiling at his seriousness. "Show me."

He reached down, raking his fingers through her damp, tangled curls and then dragging one up the seam of her lips. She guided his fingers to the sensitive spot high up and he rubbed it, making her shiver. He took the nub between his thumb and forefinger and began to pluck at it while pushing his other fingers down to explore further and yes, yes, she believed him, he was a quick study, very quick.

He bent down to crush his mouth to hers, his free hand pushing her down to the blanket.

"You're so sweet," he murmured against her lips. So soft. He wasn't used to softness. Once he'd run from it, thinking it the opposite of strength. But she had both, softness and strength. It humbled him.

His hands touched everywhere they could reach. He was not dreaming. He knew it was real because he could never dream something so tender.

He kissed his way down her throat as she ran her hands over his shoulder, his arms, relishing the play of muscles beneath his skin. His breath was hot against her breast. It was strange to see him there, touching her carefully, running his fingers over them and brushing her nipples. He bent closer, and before she could wonder what he was doing his mouth closed over the tip of her breast and he sucked lightly, making her gasp as he rubbed it with his tongue, just as if he were kissing her mouth. She grabbed his shoulders to steady herself and in response he suckled harder, making her pant and squirm. Mindlessly she rubbed her legs together, and he grunted, pushing her legs further apart and nestling between them. He reached down with one hand and started to touch her the way he did before, the way that had made her mindless.

His tongue dragged roughly at her nipple, betraying his urgency. He suckled at it with more greed than finesse before releasing it with an audible pop and moving to her left breast. As he turned his head his hair rubbed against her right breast, the strands clinging to her damp nipple.

Her hands slipped from his shoulders to tug at his hair. "Stop," she mumbled. "Stop."

He pulled back from her breast with a dazed look, a strand of saliva still reaching down to her nipple. "Get off," she instructed, and he moved back, stricken.

She reached over and pushed him to his back, then crawled on top of him. He stared at her with wonder. She'd seen that look on his face before, she knew, but her mind was hazing from want and the thought fled. She straddled his hips and grasped his cock, carefully guiding the broad head into her and sinking down on him slowly.

It was snug. It was uncomfortable.

Of course it was. He was not an easy man.

He was lying still under her, breathing hard between his clenched teeth, trying so hard to be good. She'd reassure him a minute, when she felt less like cursing.

When the sting began to recede she started to move atop him. After a few clumsy moments she found a rhythm and became lost in it. She could feel his hands grasp her hips, felt him thrusting up to meet her. The pressure at the front of her sex became urgent, and she reached to touch the spot. Then his hand was there too, his fingers, and they tangled with hers as she suddenly fell, like she was pushed off a cliff, only it was exquisite and endless and there was his chest, she was laying on it, she had no idea when that happened but she was gasping for air and so was he, the sound of the breath jerking through his chest loud against her ear as his hips jerked spasmodically once, twice, and then he was groaning, his head thrown back, his back stiff, and then he was still.

His hands glided over her back as she lay against him, memorizing her, holding her close. She had no inclination to move and he didn't want her to, and eventually their breath blended into one, like they'd seen in a dream.

* * *

It was dawn when Kylo awoke, and the fire had guttered out. Enough gray light filtered through the ancient stones that he could see her face relaxed in sleep, undisturbed by care. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and he didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve the warmth of her light, and the thought of polluting it with his darkness was repellent.

Fairy stories weren't real. And if they were, he'd be the villain.

There was no one to slay the wolf, and there would be no happy ending.

Carefully he started to pull away. His arm was still trapped beneath her when her eyes opened and she smiled. It wasn't shy or tentative, because that wasn't her. "Good morning," she said.

He forced a smile. "Good morning."

"This is a nice way to wake up."

He gritted his teeth. This was torture. He wished he had his helmet, his cowl, anything to hide his face. His face gave everything away, he knew.

No matter how strong he tried to be, it revealed the weakness inside him.

She studied him for a long minute, and her smile eased away. "Do you want some tea?"

Before he could answer she slipped out of the blanket and started for the hearth. After barely a step she changed route and moved to the chest, shook out his cloak, and wrapped it around her.

She turned to ask if he liked his tea sweetened and stopped cold at the aghast look on his face.

"Take … take it off," he said, his voice cracking. "It's not—you shouldn't—"

She frowned at him but took off the cloak, rooting around for her own coarse wrap.

"I don't like you in black," he said stupidly.

Her back was to him as she started the fire and puttered around with the little pot. She didn't respond. He was grateful.

The cup she handed him was crude, enough that he wondered if it was as old as the hut itself. He took a sip and winced. "It's sweet."

"You could use some sweetness."

He tensed, and she took the cup from him and blew on it before taking a sip. He looked startled. She shrugged. "I've only got one. We'll have to share."

He hitched the blanket further and further around his waist as they went back and forth with the cup before finally reaching over to the scattered clothing and pulling the black pieces to him. They stood out against the lightness of her padawan robes.

He began to pull on his clothes, the endless layers that disguised him, made him invincible. Layer after layer, each piece another step away from the boy he'd been. He could hear her begin to dress as well, but kept his face averted, afraid his resolve would shatter.

He reached for his boots and his hand collided with hers as she reached for her own.

He recoiled, shaking his head. "I shouldn't have come here. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'll go—"

Her hand on his arm stopped him. "Hold on."

He turned to face her. He looked everywhere except her eyes, but she was patient and waited. If she was anything, it was patient.

Somewhere in the midst of his gaze-avoidance he realized she was wearing the draped and wrapped desert clothing she had worn when they first met, not her training robes, and his head snapped up to meet her eyes.

"We're leaving today," she told him briskly.

Panic crossed his painfully open face. "No. Absolutely not. I told you, you can't meet him. He's unbelievably dangerous. He presents seductively, but he's evil." After a moment he became aware of the awful irony of his words. His ears turned a dull red, but he didn't correct himself.

"I'm not going to him."

"Good—"

"And neither are you."

He dropped his boot with a clatter. "What?"

"You're staying with me."

His jaw worked. He was more agitated than she'd ever seen him, this emotional boy, worse even than he'd been in the snow on Starkiller Base. "I can't stay here—"

"No, of course not. We're going to leave together. We'll find a place somewhere that isn't First Order and isn't Resistance. We may have to look for a while, but there's a place for us. We'll find it."

Doubt swam in his eyes. If only he had known her before he'd given in to Snoke, allowed the dark side to swamp the light, he knew she would have been able to pull him back. Even now she could almost make him believe that she cared enough to fight for him.

"You think I won't?" she demanded, making him flinch. He hadn't even felt her in his mind. She leaned close to him, her finger in his face. "He can't have you any more. The things he did to you, the things he made you believe, they're over."

His mind raced, but thoughts didn't land. Fear battered him, smothering the starburst of joy and hope her words had evoked. Reality sank in. "Rey, my life is over. It was the second I went with him. I've got nothing left. I've massacred villages. I destroyed Luke's plans for restoring the Jedi. I killed Ha—m-my father," he corrected, looking down. "I don't get anything more. It's over for me."

"Shut up," she hissed, grabbing his face, shaking it, forcing him to look at her. "It's not too late. It's not. I won't let it be."

"He's—he's changed me. I'm marked. Even if I hate him—"

Her grip on his face was fierce, unyielding. " _I_ put my mark on you on Starkiller. _I'm your master now_. If I have to fight him for you I will. He can't have you." She pulled him down, pressing her lips against his mouth, his cheeks, his eyelids, and finally his scar, lingering until it burned. "You're mine. He can't have you."

He shuddered, unable to respond, and she drew his head down to rest on her shoulder. He needed comfort, pitifully so. She could give him all the comfort he needed. He froze for a moment, then shook harder. She tried to raise her head to look at him, but he pulled her back against his chest and hooked his chin over the top of her head. He was silent, but a warm wetness began to dampen her hair and slip down over her temple, blending with her own tears in a communion somehow more intimate than the night before.

"Who do you belong to?" she whispered.

His response was muffled against the curve of her neck. "You."

It was several minutes before he stepped back. She raised her head, studied his face. Lifted a hand to cup his jaw. After a long moment she nodded.

It was a strange, unnatural even, to accept that he really had a way out. That she was willing to tie herself to him like that. Once Snoke had led him to the dark side, that had been it from the people who claimed to love him. Their love was no more tangible then than it had been during visits that never happened and calls that never came.

When his father had come to him on Starkiller, so many years after Kylo had hoped he would, he'd thought it had been too late. That it hadn't been love, but a ploy. It wasn't until his father had cupped his cheek, gazed at him with absolution, that Kylo had known it was true.

And it was too late for both of them.

It had broken Snoke's grip on him, but it had made it impossible for him to ever return to his old life.

"I can't be Ben Solo again," he told her carefully. "I killed him. Snoke gave me the weapon, but I'm the one who used it."

She'd tell him, eventually, that he was wrong. Ben Solo wasn't dead. He'd tried so hard to destroy the boy he'd been, but even that moment on the walkway on Starkiller hadn't done it. He wouldn't be shielding her from Snoke if Ben Solo were dead, wouldn't be keeping Luke's location a secret. He'd slipped back to the light side so quietly he hadn't even realized he'd crossed over.

But whether he was Ben Solo again, or not, he was hers.

She stroked her thumbs against his cheeks. "I don't know Ben Solo. But I know Kylo Ren." She reached up on her toes to brush her lips against his. "Have you already forgotten what I said? He's mine."

He shook his head again, worry in his eyes. "I'm death."

"But I'm life." His eyes widened. "Do you doubt it?" she challenged.

That look … he couldn't fight against it. He couldn't fight against her. He'd known back in the snowy woods of Starkiller that she would be his end. Then, he thought it would be with a lightsaber. But that was the least of the weapons she wielded.

He leaned down to press his forehead against hers. "I don't."

* * *

Kylo waited for Rey on a lower terrace, one Luke Skywalker would not see unless he were actually looking for someone. He had given her privacy to pack her things and write a note to her master, and perhaps in the solitude she would change her mind.

But he had felt her honesty, her devotion. It sanctified him. He didn't deserve it, but he was selfish enough to take it.

 _"_ _I've never done this before."_

 _"_ _Neither have I."_

It was something a child would dwell on. A callow adolescent trying to find significance in happenstance, a romantic attempting to assign meaning to an act that was mechanical, biological. Not metaphysical.

But he had spent his life looking for signs, searching for guideposts to a future he knew must already be written. All he had found were Skywalker's platitudes and Snoke's deceptions. And so when he found a map inscribed with his name, he could no more ignore it than he could cease to breathe. He had never wanted anything more than to know his place in the universe and be strong enough to accept it.

And for the first time that place was clear to him.

 _"_ _If I have to fight him for you I will."_

He wouldn't tell her, not yet. He didn't want to scare her. He would hold his certainty against his heart and warm it with his belief. Later, when he was as sure of her as he was of himself, he would share it with her, this thing that was part of them.

"Let's go."

He turned and there she was, wrapped in her cloak, the world's smallest, most pathetic bag in her hand. "Are you all right? The letter—was it…?"

"It's fine," she dismissed. "I thanked him for training me. Told him how grateful I was. Said it wasn't the life for me, but I was honored. Encouraged him to contact his sister. Said to give them my regards."

"He won't wonder how you got offworld?"

She stopped and considered for a moment. "Look," she said finally. "We're not going to find the perfect way to get out of here or the perfect planet to go to or the perfect ship after we ditch yours. But this—us—is perfect now. I don't want to wait any more. Do you?"

It took a moment before the smile spread across his face, but when it came it was incandescent. "Let's go."

* * *

He couldn't hear them, and they couldn't hear him. Not any more than they had the other times. The first couple of meetings they had been careful to keep their voices lowered, although he wasn't sure it was even intentional.

Later they'd seemed to forget they weren't the only people on the island. As if he disappeared when Kylo was there, or as if the entire thing were taking place solely in their heads.

Kylo was without his mask, and his cowl was down. The gloves were gone. He still wore the stern black clothes, but Luke had the feeling that would change.

Rey, wrapped in her coarse cape, reached over to Kylo and tugged at something. His head jerked up and he reached out, stopping her.

Luke squinted against Ahch-To's harsh winds before he recognized what the object of contention was.

Kylo's lightsaber. Huge and crude, with treacherous cross-beams. Made with a cracked crystal before the boy had earned the right to make his own saber. The light it shed, the power it wielded, was as unstable as the boy who had made it.

For a moment the two of them tugged the lightsaber back and forth, and he could see Rey talking to Kylo, leaning closer, her head shaking vehemently. Abruptly she stumbled backwards.

The lightsaber was in her hand.

She dropped it.

She picked up the little bundle she'd gathered in her hut and held out her hand to Kylo. He stared at the abandoned lightsaber only a moment before taking her hand.

They were out of sight in just a few moments, never knowing he was there. Luke walked into the clearing and bent to pick up Kylo's lightsaber, abandoned in the low weeds. He could sense darkness crawling over the weapon, but it didn't touch him. Rey was right to make Kylo leave it.

 _Ben._ She was right to make Ben leave it.

The lightsaber vibrated in his hand, pleading for use. Tonight it would be added to his fire, and he would ensure that there were no trophies left for the dark.

The dark side had pursued Ben for his entire life, groomed him, isolated him, flattered him.

Stolen him.

Luke had been able to pull his father back at the very last, welcome him to the light. Despite his efforts, despite Leia's, they'd been unable to drive the beast away from Ben.

For years they'd lived with the guilt that they had failed him.

But maybe their efforts had been enough to keep the embers glowing until Rey was able to fan them back to life.

Luke exhaled, the pressure of decades easing.

The wolf that had stalked his family for so long was dead.

 **The End**


End file.
